


Chance

by Taeyn



Series: a lot of explosions for two people blending in [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Affection, Caretaking, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Tears, Tenderness, patching-up injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 05:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10430193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taeyn/pseuds/Taeyn
Summary: “You look terrible,” she said, voice shaking as she tried to grin.“I’m in good company,” Cassian managed, his eyes creasing above smears of black silt. Jyn breathed a laugh, coarse and winded. He was no Partisan, but they were raised in the same school of thought.





	

**Author's Note:**

> content note: this fic does contain mild mention of injuries/blood... for the purpose of patching-up said injuries :’)

Cassian pressed his sleeve to his lower lip, dark red blotting into the fabric. He was using his good hand, blood splattered to his knees as he moved it to help.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” said Jyn, caged her fingers around his knuckles and squeezed. She was trembling, the fallout of the adrenaline worse than the damage.

_Infiltrate a war zone,_ Jyn thought, emptying the last of the bacta compound into the dish, _and you tend to get shot at._

Cassian started coughing as she stirred the solution, added filtered water until the liquid turned chalk white. He’d been closer to the blast, it had taken a half-minute to find him in the ash.

“You look terrible,” she said, voice shaking as she tried to grin.

“I’m in good company,” Cassian managed, his eyes creasing above smears of black silt. Jyn breathed a laugh, coarse and winded. He was no Partisan, but they were raised in the same school of thought.

“You… should really… learn to duck,” Jyn continued. She’d exhausted her better insults dragging him back to the ship. Carefully, she reached for the hand tucked below Cassian’s armpit, unfastened the tourniquet once she’d submerged it in field bacta. A bright plume rose from his palm, dissolved to the edges of the dish.

“Easier when you know what’s coming,” he said hoarsely, fingers bumping against hers. “Still working on that one.”

Jyn tore the seal on a strip of gauze, wet it and applied pressure to the wound at his lip. His mouth flinched in an involuntary snarl, but his eyes didn’t change. Up close, Jyn found them surprisingly soft.

It was strange what small things prised beneath her skin, when the rain of burning shrapnel was just another cloak.

The scrapes on Cassian’s face blurred, and Jyn suddenly found herself blinking, unsteady even at a kneel.

“Hey- d’you hear me?” Cassian said roughly, his frown smudging back into focus. “I said… if we’d taken the front way… like I said,” his throat sounded dry as he swallowed, “wouldn’t have been a problem.”

It took Jyn a moment to come back, recall the splintering landscape.

“We’re on Geonosis,” she said slowly. “There’s never a front way.”

She caught his eye, and just like that.

They nearly smiled.

Cassian brushed his thumb to the gauze, the swelling at his mouth already easing off. Jyn ripped the corner of an electrolyte sachet with her teeth, caught most of the powder in her canteen. She tested it with a sip, grimaced at the familiar salty edge.

“Thank you,” Cassian murmured, and it took both of them to hold the flask steady. He twitched his head halfway through, watched as Jyn finished the rest.

“You’ve got another thirty in bacta,” Jyn said after a moment, checked the healing rate on his lacerated palm. Cassian nodded, jaw gritted as he tried to lie on the floor. This mission or the last, they’d acquired enough bruises for that to be a challenge.

“Here...” Jyn shifted around so he could rest his head in her lap, “I’m not much of a pillow, but…”

When the suggestion trailed to silence, Cassian eased himself against her.

“-but I’m not much of a blanket?” he offered, quiet.

Jyn leant her back against the carrier, listened to the whirr of the engine. They hadn’t cleared to hyperspace.

“I didn’t get the information,” she whispered finally, and when he met her eyes, she saw he already knew. “Before the explosion. The contact wanted to tell me something else. And... I didn’t get there. She didn’t trust me.”

“You didn’t push,” Cassian said. Not an accusation. Jyn stared up at the fluorescents, specks of colour waxing with the light.

“I didn’t want to lose her,” she muttered, and it took hearing it out loud to realise that wasn’t it.

“You knew you wouldn’t,” said Cassian, and Jyn could tell by his tone that he was testing. She flinched a nod. It was only her body that was down for the count.

“She hesitated. You saw your chance-” Cassian drew a breath, brief and guttural. “And then you didn’t trust your instinct.”

He broke off coughing, and Jyn braced her hand between his shoulders to sit him up, scraped the sweat-soaked hair from his face when he could breathe. Cassian darted an eye to her, something close to surprise.

“And if my instincts keep telling me that my instincts aren’t right?” Jyn said, the words drained and bitter and not nearly good enough. Not for the resistance. And definitely not for her.

Cassian grazed the back of his hand to his face, only managing to look slightly less garish by smearing the blood to his knuckles instead.

“You still have to know that they are,” Cassian said thickly, his head heavy in her lap. “Trust mine.”

-

Nothing kills time like second-guessing. It felt like hours later when Jyn dragged herself to the galley, refilled the metal dish with hot water. Rolling back her right sleeve, she tightened the fabric below her shoulder with a cord, stretched her arm on the table next to her field kit. She counted twelve shards of plaster imbedded in her skin, all of them superficial.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hurt.

Though the numb had subsided, her left hand still felt clumsy as Jyn picked up the tweezers, tried to catch a fragment of rock without it crumbling at her grip.

“That looks unpleasant,” came a distinctly dry-sounding tone. “If only you had someone on board with microtuned reflexes, several megachips of field-surgery data, and a schedule bereft of any meaningful duties or tasks, since you have so happily set the ship to _autopilot_.”

Jyn looked up, shot the droid a withering smile.

“You’re right,” she said deliberately. “I should probably ask Bodhi if he wouldn’t mind.”

“Mind what?” called Bodhi, appearing in the galley a second later, playing cards still in hand. They’d discovered not a week ago that K-2’s core programming included every Imperial card game under the stars, and the two had barely been seen apart since.

“I heard my name.” He grinned, smile fading as his stare dropped to Jyn’s arm. The playing cards slipped from his fingers as the realisation hit base.

“It’s nothing,” Jyn said gruffly, reflexively lowered her sleeve.

“It might not be serious,” Bodhi interrupted, pulled out a chair and sat next to her. His eyes cut to the field kit, voice held steady. “But it’s not nothing. What can I do?”

Jyn glanced up as K-2 joined them, held out his palm for the tweezers. Jyn didn’t move, so he plucked them from her fingers regardless.

“Distract me?” she said softly, felt a tug on her windpipe as Bodhi reached her his hand.

“I would have come,” he said quietly. “You know I would have.”

There was a small silence, K-2’s processors creaking as he inspected Jyn’s arm.

“That would have compromised the mission,” the droid answered, and Jyn could’ve sworn he sounded gentle. “As well as Jyn and Cassian’s continued ability to liaise with informants.”

Bodhi ran a hand over his eyes, Jyn carefully squeezed his knuckles.

“My sister was an informant,” Bodhi said eventually, the words sad and bitten in his throat. K-2 tipped his head to look at him, made a gesture Jyn couldn’t quite catch.

“I didn’t know that,” she muttered. Bodhi’s sister had been on Jedah.

“Neither did I,” Bodhi whispered, gave a weak smile. “I assume she thought I was loyal to the Empire. Which is what I thought of her. And this whole time- _the_ whole time,” he corrected, took a shaky breath.

“-we were on the same side.”

He didn’t wipe the tears that ran down his face, Jyn realised she was gripping his palm hard enough to hurt.

“If I had known, I would’ve taken her with me when I defected.” Bodhi’s mouth pulled down at the corners, the confession left him shivering pale. “Even if it compromised the mission. Even if she told me to leave her behind.”

“You’d make a terrible spy,” K-2 said after a beat, and to Jyn’s surprise Bodhi spluttered a laugh.

“I’m glad,” Jyn said slowly, and she meant it. When she thought of Bodhi, K-2, Cassian…

Jyn frowned, the idea as unsettling as it was unfamiliar.

_In a heartbeat._

“Well, come on,” K-2 said briskly, his imperial accent noticeably clipped. He gestured impatiently to Jyn’s injured arm. “Criticising you is at least three times more enjoyable when you’re not walking wounded-”

Jyn tried not to smile.

“-and if _that_ isn’t enough incentive for you, the quicker we finish, the lower the odds of Cassian realising you _lied_ in order to tend to him first.”

“Am I really that obvious?” Jyn answered, slightly dismayed.

“Yes,” said Bodhi, gave a watery smile.

“Yes,” said K-2. He shifted his posture, leant over the table. “Now hold still.”

-

Jyn stripped down to her combats, sweat and force-knows-what-else gravelled into her skin. She heard a faint clatter and stilled, tried her best not to listen for Cassian. Walls were thin on the transporter, and he never slept more than a few hours. When nothing followed, she bent down to her boots, buckles caked tight with grit. Beside her on the floor was a datacard, no larger than a fingernail.

Jyn froze, held her breath as her world went gauzy bright.

She remembered the sound, the desert beneath her shook. There was the first shot, an echo, part of the ceiling had caved and the bar was emptying. She stumbled, dust and concrete and the growl of something broken. A hand pulled her to her feet. _There’s never a front way._

Jyn had blinked.

They were gone.

Slowly, Jyn reached for the card, bit the inside of her cheek to keep her fingers steady. Atrivis sector issue, dull black where the Imperial crest had been scratched away.

Jyn opened her reader, fought her pulse back down her windpipe. There were any number of paths, none of them clear…

And only two led back to her.

“Cassian-” she whispered, barely audible over the roaring in her ears. “Cassian. Cassian.”

She turned, the message abandoned on the floor. The frame of her quarters tipped and swung, by the time she made it he was already there, half-dressed and ready, his stare shadowed torn.

“Jyn-”

Cassian caught her arms, hands gripped fierce at the bend of her elbow. He said her name again, tight and urgent, voice hoarse and eyes searching. Her fingers clung into his sleeves.

“Jyn…”

Softer, he leant his head, held her while she trembled. Her lips parted, breath came in small sips. His mouth had fallen ajar too, braced to utter whatever it was she couldn’t say. The cabin stung cold and a tear dropped from Jyn’s eye, dashed the line of her cheek as it fell.

A flinch of air escaped Cassian’s lungs, his jaw clenched and his eyes dark. He shook his head, something wounded and snared. Jyn felt her mouth crumple as he moved his hand, fingers rough and bandages wound at his palm. His thumb brushed the wetness at her cheek and she leant to his touch, a low sob hissed through her teeth.

“Jyn…” Cassian whispered again, the word gritted in his throat. He looked like he’d been shot.

She grazed the side of her face to his, eyes squeezed and his exhale warm at her ear. Her arms had fallen limp, his wrapped around her shoulders.

His heartbeat was so close.

The explosion came back to her, the one at the very start. There was sand, fire, the click and whistle of a grenade. She had seen…

_Good luck, little sister._

She had been there…

_Until all the chances are spent._

“Cassian,” Jyn rasped. He breathed out, cheeks damp and brow pressed to hers.

“They’re alive.”

-

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! c: comments and kudos are always adored and appreciated <3
> 
> tumblr [@thisideofthegalaxy](https://thisideofthegalaxy.tumblr.com/)


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